Walter Skeat

Walter Skeat attended King’s College School (Wimbledon), Highgate School and Christ’s College. He studied theology and mathematics at Cambridge. In 1860 he married Bertha Clara and became a curate. In 1864 he taught maths at Cambridge. He started studying Anglo-Saxon and Gothic and was professor of Anglo-Saxon languages at Cambridge between 1878 and 1912. For fourteen years he published treatises for the “Early English Text Society”. In 1873 he established the “English Dialect Society” and served as its chairman until 1896. This society supported among others the English Dialect Dictionary. He helped founding the “Chaucer Society” and the “New Shakespeare Society”. He became the first chairman of the “Simplified Spelling Society”. His most important publication was his Etymological dictionary (1879-1882). He became a member of the British Academy and was awarded several honorary doctorates.